Horological Meandering

AndrewD
[HoMe Moderator]
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Thanks for provoking discussion …

Hi Rip,

I realise that you are only trying to provoke discussion and its always rewarding to think a little more deeply about what these timepieces mean to us.

The luxury of the mechanical watch for me is in the ‘humanness’, the history, and what time telling meant to the development of human culture. I quite like the fact that most people don’t realise what is behind the dial of my watches, and I don’t expect any recognition from people that I meet, although I do enjoy discussing watches with the 0.01% of the population that relate to watches in the same way that I do (I guess that means most of you guys reading this).

Quartz watches are usually excluded from discussions on luxury watches because mechanical watches have more evidence of the human hand of the maker. They are often more elegant with more thought in their design, but I recognise that this is not necessarily so. The fact that they are less ‘common’ than quartz watches and that they are more of an indulgence than a necessity in this modern digital life of ours, also adds to the ‘luxury’ for me.

We have all learned to live with a lesser degree of accuracy from our mechanical watches, and when they gain only 10 seconds in a week we are very happy; but it is not the main factor of course. I expect accuracy from the digital clock in my phone or on the wall, but I am content with ‘reasonable’ (perhaps hard to define and unique to all of us) level of accuracy from my mechanicals. In my day-to-day life and work I require a certain degree of analytical accuracy, so in many ways I actually enjoy a mechanical timepiece because I can allow wider tolerances.

Finally, there is also the influence of the motivation of the producer of these watches. This has to be most apparent with the independents who are at least trying to attain perfection. Being an optimist, I would also like to think that this is the goal of the larger manufactures (in addition to turning a profit which hopefully is a secondary motivation but comes when they get the pursuit of perfection part correct).

Kind regards as always,

Andrew